Susan Meiselas

Sandinistas at the walls of the Esteli National Guard headquarters, Esteli, Nicaragua, 1979

?? Susan Meiselas/Magnum

Here are two recent articles - a review and an interview - about Susan Meiselas' current ICP solo exhibition, up through January 4, 2008:

NYTimes Art Review | Susan Meiselas

Lives in a Danger Zone, Captured and Revisited

By KEN JOHNSON

Published: September 25, 2008

The Brooklyn Rail (November 2008)

Susan Meiselas with Phong Bui

by Phong Bui

The Polish Pavilion was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at this year's edition of the Venice Biennale of Architecture. And it's easy to understand why.

Curated by Grzegorz Piątek and Jarosław Trybuś, the exhibition is entitled Warsaw's Polonia Hotel. The Afterlife of Buildings and presents six major architectural projects designed in Poland in recent years by renowned architects.

What is the point of having a second air terminal at Warsaw airport when skyrocketing price of oil makes flying affordable to very few people? When importing bananas from Brazil and rice from Vietnam has become a scandalous luxury? The solution envisioned by Polish authorities a few decades from now is to convert an airstrip into cultivated land and to adapt Terminal 2 to the needs of a large animal husbandry plant.

Could this idea be discarded as a crazy forecast when speculations about the future of Berlin's Tempelhof airport, now officially closed, envision the possibility to turn the 900-acre (365-hectare) site into a luxury spa, some condos, a museum, a park, a trade center or even the centerpiece of a new Olympic bid.

Terminal 2 - Fryderyk Chopin International Airport, (Estudio Lamela, Lamela y Asociados)

What's the use of the Metropolitan office building designed by Foster+Partners once the speculative real-estate market faces collapse or in case of a revolution in the patterns of corporate work? Could it be bought one day by the police and turned into a prison? The idea might not be as crazy as it sounds. The building encircles the courtyard (which would become an exercise yard for convicts) in an almost perfect panopticon and the polished surface of the walls multiply reflections, enabling a surveillance from all points of view.

Metropolitan, by Norman Foster and Partners

What is going to happen with a monumental university library such as the Warsaw University Library when all the books become digital? Wouldn't it make more sense to restyle the space into a shopping mall?

Warsaw University Library, by Marek Budzyński, Zbigniew Badowski

Who needs a monumental Marian shrine like the Sanctuary of our Lady of Sorrow, built between 1994 and 2004, in Lichen when even the last Poles have ceased attending masses? Surely they would prefer Poland's largest church to be converted into an aquatic park, right?

Sanctuary of our Lady of Sorrow, by architect Barbara Bielecka

The project didn't stop with a bunch of photos. The building of Polish Pavillion itself - a monumental building raised in the 1930s- is subject to change. The curators re-purposed it into a hotel for the first five days of the Biennale. When i visited, beds were still welcoming visitors willing to have a quick rest and a red sign that reads Hotel was added on the facade of the Polish pavilion.

The Venice Biennale of Architecture continues until Nov. 23, 2008.

The exhibition From One Revolution to Another - Carte Blanche to Jeremy Deller which is currently running at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris is worth a visit for many reasons (i illustrate some of them in an article which has just been translated in... swedish), the most exciting one for me was a large b&w portrait of the magnificent Exotic Adrian.

Adrian Street was a glam rock wrestler who gained fame for dressing in flamboyant platform shoes and glitter capes, wearing bleached hair and extravagant make up, kissing his opponents on stage and tarting them up with make up when he had them pinned down.

"Exotic", Adrian Street, and his father a working miner at the pit-head. South Wales, 1973. Photo : Dennis Hutchinson

Born in 1940 in a family of Welsh coalminers, Street left home at 16 to become a pro wrestler. To ensure that he'd get the recognition his talent deserved, he created a persona which puzzled the audience by the way its extreme toughness was paired with the appareance of an outlandish cross-dresser.

Street designed his own outfits, finding inspiration in historical costumes such as those worn by Joachim Murat. His design were so successful that they ended up being worn by Elton John, Gary Glitter, Adam Ant, David Bowie and Marc Bolan. Street's involvement with the world of music stretched to releasing records, I'm Only Happy Breakin' Bones and Imagine What I Could Do To You (see video below).

The best part of his career is that it is still going 'strong'. Street plans to wrestle professionally until 2010 and beyond, making it probably the only wrestler whose fights spanned over 7 decades.

Adrian Street - Imagine What I Could Do to You:

The magazine of the Palais de Tokyo has a wonderful interview in which Street appears to be an extremely witty and smart guy.

From One Revolution to Another - Carte Blanche to Jeremy Deller is on view at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris until January 4, 2009.

The MACBA, the museum of contemporary art in Barcelona, has recently opened Universal Archive. The Condition of the Document and the Modern Photographic Utopia, an exhibition that analyses the idea of a document in the history of photography on the basis of the study and staging of a number of debates about the genre during the 20th century.

This is a rich exhibition at the point of being almost encyclopedic but it's also amazingly good and fascinating. Maybe later on this week i'll find the time to put my thoughts together and blog about the show but if this doesn't happen here's a picture of one of the photographers whose work i discovered last week while visiting the MACBA.

Xavier Ribas' Barcelona Pictures are miles away from your usual Gaudi facades and crazy Rambla postcards. The photographer turned his lens to the phenomenon of entertainment, of leisure, of what people do in their 'free' time, showing the extent to which such activities take place in the city's residual spaces. Quite spontaneously, people preserve, manage and recycle these spaces, effectively keeping them out of the efficient, productive order of the city: places for walking, sunbathing, picknicking, sport and exercise...It seems paradoxical that these spaces -not yet codified, as yet without regulation- are where people still have a chance to take the initiative. As Ribas concludes: 'Freedom can only flourish in a residual space that might, as a result, have a desolate appearance'.

Image on the homepage: Xavier Ribas, Untitled (Bellvitge), 1994-1997.

Universal Archive. The Condition of the Document and the Modern Photographic Utopia runs at the MACBA until January 6, 2009 and will then travel to the Museu Berardo de Lisboa.

Today in Italy, car manufacturers promise you that half naked ladies will throw themselves languorously over your car hood if you buy one of their models. Back in the 50s in the US, you would get a supply of Kleenex if you purchased a Pontiac. Photograph by Bill Wood - a commercial photographer in Fort Worth, Texas, whose negatives were bought by Diane Keaton and exhibited at the International Center of Photography.

The show closed a few days ago but i thought it was still worth sharing this image with you.

I made it just on time to see the last day of Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video From Japan, an exhibition that closed a few days ago at the International center of photography in Manhattan.

The work of the 13 Japanese artists on show visits three main themes. The one i found most fascinating and probably also most Japanese investigates the tension between individual expression and collective identity in contemporary Japan.

Tomoko Sawada. From the series "School Days," 2004 © Tomoko Sawada. Courtesy of MEM Inc. and Zabriskie Gallery

She might not be as beautiful as Cindy Sherman but that doesn't prevent Tomoko Sawada to create compelling images. Her "School Days" series shows groups of girls in their high school uniforms lined up in neat rows. At first sight, they are all different. But a closer watch reveals that each of the girl (including the teacher's) has the face of Sawada who with subtlety varies her smile, adds an accessory in her hair, stands with an arrogant stance or adopts a demure posture. What was a sweet and innocent school portraits turns into a satire of Japan's homogeneity and emphasis on conformity (interview of the artist on Pingmag.)

Hiroh Kikai, November 17, 2001 and A Performer of Butoh Dance, 2001

Photo: Hiroh Kikai

Hiroh Kikai's portraits also talk about individuality. Since 1973 the photographer has roamed the Asakusa district of Tokyo, looking for people whom he defines as having a 'take my picture please' aura. So far he has collected 600 b&w portraits of strangers posing against the blank walls of the Sensoji Temple. Most of the people he selected seem to be ordinary. Yet, there is something definitely unconventional about each of them (more images).

Masayuki Yoshinaga, from the series Goth-Loli, 2006 (more in Radar's slideshow)

We knew about Masayuki Yoshinaga's portraits of goth-lolitas but the photographer also spent 7 years making portraits of Bōsōzoku, the teenage biker gangs, often linked to the Yakuza. A former member of the Bosozoku himself, Yoshinga managed to get access to their activities and had the gang pose for him.

Masayuki Yoshinaga, from the Bosozoku series, 1997-2003 (image topgear)

Masayuki Yoshinaga, from the Bosozoku series, 1997-2003 (image topgear)

A second theme in the exhibition examines the relationship of the adult to the child, a key subject in a country facing a rapidly graying demographic.

Kenji Yanobe's works explore the idea of survival in a post-atomic world.

The installation Blue Cinema in the Woods centers on a child-size movie theater set on the back of an elephant. Outside the theater stands a ventriloquist's dummy called Torayan, who appears frequently in Yanobe's work. Torayan is wearing a mini Atom suit ('Atom' comes from the robot character in Osamu Tezuka' s comic book Astro Boy), a child version of the radiation suit that the artist wore in 1997 when he carried out a performance at Chernobyl.

In the video shown inside the movie theater, Torayan appears with Yanobe's father, an amateur ventriloquist. Using American civil-defense films of the 1950s, he instructs Torayan about the measures to be taken if atomic disasters were to happen again.

Kenji Yanobe, Blue Cinema in the Woods, 2006 © Kenji Yanobe. Courtesy of the artist

Miwa Yanagi's b&w photo series, "Fairy Tale," consists of reinterpretations of western stories in a very Film Noir fashion. The protagonists are all young girls. The young girls are set upon by nasty old women but they have very little in common with the Disney-like innocence of their age. They put up a fight and prove not so helpless after all. They use their youth and cunning to triumph in rather heartless fashion over their aged tormentors.

Miwa Yanagi, Fairy Tales Series: Gretel, 2004 © Miwa Yanagi. Courtesy of the artist

Miwa Yanagi, Fairy Tales Series: Sleeping Beauty, 2004 © Miwa Yanagi. Courtesy of the artist

The third theme in the exhibition Heavy Light is the conflict between human culture and nature, best exemplified in the work of Naoya Hatakeyama and Naoki Kajitani.

Naoya Hatakeyama, from the Lime Works (Factory Series) 1991-94

Hatakeyama being so famous, i'll focus on Naoki Kajitani. The young digital street photographer takes his camera primarily in the Kansai region around Osaka, one of the traditional centers of Japan's "low" entertainment culture. Despite of this clear location, Kajitani's photos are 'generic', they represent fragments of the whole country. One which is saturated with garish commercial imagery. His large-scale, Pop-style photographs shows Japan as a cramped environment saturated with noisy billboards, posters, pachinko parlours, power lines, adult shops and advertising displays that appear both playful and sordid.

Naoki Kajitani, JPEG / Starlight, Nagasaki, 2006 © Naoki Kajitani. Courtesy of Third Gallery Aya

In an interview for the catalog of the exhibition, the photographer explained that the areas his work focuses on are being redeveloped at a fast pace and are rapidly disappearing. His work might therefore end up becoming a valuable record of the period he is busy portraying.

Hola! I'm in Madrid stuffing myself with the sublime tortilla de patatas and checking out the projects developed this month at Medialab Prado as part of the now illustrious Interactivos? workshop. The theme of this edition is Vision Play, the public presentation is tomorrow June 14 at 6.30 pm and it's going to be extremely good.

Meanwhile the Photo Espana Festival is all over the city. Here's just an appetizer from one of the many exhibitions i've seen today:

Words, 2008

Heart of Gold, Félix Curto's solo show at La Fábrica Galería, takes its title from a song by Neil Young. It features ten photographs taken by the Spanish artist while he was visiting the Mennonite communities in America.

After the Goldrush, 2008

Dreamin´man, 2008

From the press release:
The Mennonite communities in America work the land and lead simple lives, with no cars, electricity or any other modern conveniences. All of this is an expression of their understanding of the Christian faith, and they guard their privacy extremely jealously, totally isolated from the outside world. Currently, there are Mennonite communities in 82 countries, with over a million and a half members. The members of this community are, as the artist says, "good people, united by a strong spirituality that is never mentioned and yet is perceived at all times. Life in the community turns mutual respect and assistance into something that is completely normal, routine. They are reserved men and women, but if they empathise with you they will open their hearts to you." The atmosphere in the Mennonite communities, not unlike that of a Western film, is pervaded by the philosophy of non-violence.

Curto has something of a traditionalist himself. He keeps using the Nikkon 801 AF, 35 milimeters his mother gave him almost 20 years ago. He doesn't use a tripod, nor does he require the help of an assistant. He takes only one picture in each situation. Using a digital camera would therefore make no sense to him.

Heart of Gold, 2008

Hear of Gold runs until July 19 at La Fábrica Galería in Madrid.

I'm back from New York for more than a week and getting ready for new adventures in little Europe. Time to turn a page on the transcontinental trip by throwing in a couple of posts the best exhibitions i saw while i was in Manhattan. Some of them are still up till the end of the month, others have already closed their doors. Here we go...

In the collective exhibition AMERIKA: Back to the Future, David Herbert, Anthony Goicolea, Marcus Kenney, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy play with American icons. The artists vision is somewhat dark, critical (how could it not be) but often humorous. Starship Enterprise is re-visited by future cavemen, Mickey Mouse goes on a size-zero diet and a burnt-down chain retailer's suburban storefront aimlessly rotates on a plate.

Marcus Kenney, The First Americans, 2006

My favourite by far were Marcus Kenney's assemblage of discarded and old magazine clippings, book illustrations, old receipts, stamps, wallpaper etc. to create nostalgic imagery dealing with contemporary issues. The stars of his compositions are weird children, young women setting foot on distant planets or a girl walking on crutches painted with the motifs of the U.S. flag, etc. A closer look reveal the figures of U.S. presidents and American natives. The colourful and (at first sight) cheerful collages are hinting at some of the pages of American history which do not tend to make its citizens very proud.

Marcus Kenney, Like a Good Neighbor, 2008

On view at Postmasters through June 21, 2008. More images.

I walked to the edge of the art Chelsea area to see Actus Reus, Tamara Kostianovsky's solo show. Ready to be butchered beef carcasses were hanging on hooks. Disturbing and so "life"-like that the gallery almost smelled of meat, the animals were made out of discarded human clothes.

Actus Reus is the second part of The Proper Animal, a three-part multidisciplinary program comprised of three solo exhibitions by artists who utilize sometimes disturbing animal iconography to bring ethical considerations into play. The next episode, a show by Julian Montague, looks equally fascinating and as it will focus on spiders i suspect it will be equally repulsive as well.

Closed recently at the Black and White Gallery, Chelsea. My images.

I got to discover the work of Dutch collective Antistrot by chance. I was in the building where they are having a solo exhibition to see another show. I happened to take the wrong corridor and enter the wrong gallery. That was for the best. Wild and powerful styles manage to cohabit almost peacefully on Antistrot's paintings: animals you'd see on the walls of your favourite city, gangster faces you encounter mostly in fanzines, monsters like you'd get in a fairy tale without happy ending and busty girls being well... mostly very busty.

Ich Möchte Fliegen Können, 2008

Current members of Antistrot are Paul Börchers, David Elshout, Johan Kleinjan, Silas Schletterer, Michiel Walrave and Bruno Ferro Xavier da Silva, with additional help from Charlie Dronkers.

Video:

Antistrot from Saratecchia on Vimeo.

What we do is Secret is at Sara Tecchia Roma New York until June 21. My antiimages, also on artnet.

Shot in coastal waters and regions as far apart on every aspect as Australia, Japan, Antarctica, Kuwait, Iraq and California, An-My Lê's photographs examine intersecting themes of scientific exploration, military power, environmental crises, fantasies of empire and the vast ungovernable oceans that connect nations and continents.

An-My Lê, Target Practice, USS Peleliu, 2005

An-My Lê, Oden, Swedish Ice Breaker, McMurdo, Antarctica, 2008

Although the themes and settings are deeply grounded into reality, the images give an eerie feeling. The structures, military equipment, boats and landscapes captured by the photographer seem almost too big and out of this world to be true.

Seen at Murray Guy (the show is now closed)

Shuli Hallak's photographs document cargo in its state of transit between production and consumption. Almost every manufactured product humans consume spends time in a shipping container, yet most of us have little clue about the process by which goods are actually transported.

New York Container Terminal, 4, 2005

Fascinated by cargos, the photographer embarked on a container ship in New York and traveled to Florida, crossed the Panama Canal and ended the journey in Guayaquil, Ecuador to pick up some bananas.

CSAV Chicago, 2005

On view at Moti Hasson through June 28.

FotoGrafia, the 7th edition of international festival of photography closed recently in Rome. I've already mentioned how much i have been blown away by Paolo Woods' Chinese Wild West, one of the photo series i discovered at Palazzo delle Esposizioni.

Milkmaids, 2007, Lucia Nimcova

The other photographer whose work impressed me at Palazzo is Lucia Nimcova. It's probably nothing you haven't seen before: ex-communist moments and places in all their coldness, blandness, cheesy silky buttoned-up shirts, poodle-perms and faux-marble. It never fails to make you smile but don't get carried away too easily because here's a photographer who sees beyond the nostalgia and the zero fashion sense, Nimcova has tact, delicacy and talent. In her Unofficial series, the photographer documents Normalisation, an ideological programme involving political and social integration applied in Czechoslovakia after 1968. Searching for and analyzing the photographic archives in her city, Humenné, Nimcova is looking back at a not-so-distant past which traces are still visible today.

With delegates, 2007, Lucia Nimcova

But it was at the Museo di Roma in Trastevere that i got the real shock and awe experience. The museum was hosting the World Press Photo 2008 exhibition. For 50 years, the World Press Photo Foundation is awarding the most striking and representative images that have accompanied, documented and illustrated the events of our times in newspapers.

The Photo of the Year 2007, taken in Afghanistan by Tim Hetherington, portrays an American soldier resting in a trench. All the winners are listed on this webpage but here is my selection (with texts coming mostly from the awards website):

The most stunning image for me is from a series called Gorilla Killings by Brent Stirton .

Brent Stirton, Reportage by Getty Images for Newsweek. Evacuation of dead Mountain Gorillas, Virunga National Park, Eastern Congo. Photo First magazine

Stirton's images narrate how in July 2007, Conservation Rangers worked with locals to evacuate the bodies of four breathtakingly beautiful Mountain Gorillas killed in mysterious circumstances in the Virunga National Park, Eastern Congo. A Silver-Back Alpha male, the leader of the group was shot, three females were also killed. Two of the females had babies and the other was pregnant. It is suspected that the motivation for the killing are political. The local illegal Charcoal industry is economically and politically at odds with conservation efforts in this very poor area. As a result, over 100 Rangers have been killed in the last ten years as part of their efforts to protect the Gorillas of Virunga, one of the world's most endangered species.

Brent Stirton, Reportage by Getty Images for Newsweek. Evacuation of dead Mountain Gorillas, Virunga National Park, Eastern Congo

For more information, have a look at The National Geographic's video in which photographers Michael Nichols and Brent Stirton explain the significance of the recent gorilla massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Brent Stirton, Reportage by Getty Images for Newsweek. Evacuation of dead Mountain Gorillas, Virunga National Park, Eastern Congo

For the past year, Erika Larsen has been traveling the U.S. capturing the hunting experiences of children on camera. In some states across the USA it is legal for children under the age of 12 to hunt if in the company of a licensed adult hunter. The removal of age barriers in hunting follows campaigns by some outdoor organizations to give young people the chance to discover recreations other than computer games.

Erika Larsen, USA, Redux Pictures for Field & Stream Magazine. Josh David Keith (15) straddles a live boar on Boyles Island, Georgia

In the communist era, circus was one of the most popular forms of mass entertainment in Poland. Performers all came from a circus school in Julinek. Since the 1990s, Julinek has been slowly dying. The circus center that once employed up to 1,500 artists and technicians has closed due to financial problems. Rafal Milach tracked down and portrayed retired artists who performed in circus for several decades

©Rafal Milach. Retired circus artiste Jozef Maksymiuk (59), at home dressed in one of his old costumes

Cédric Gerbehaye reported on the aftermaths of the first free elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in more than four decades. Held in 2006, they did not put an end to violence and instability in the country.

Cédric Gerbehaye. Dissident general Laurent Nkunda, leader of the CNDP (National Congres for the Defense of the People), poses at his headquarter in his stronghold of Kichanga, Masisi hills in North-Kivu. Written on the wall: Justice is rendered in the name of the people. Democratic Republic of Congo, 2007

Benjamin Lowy made extremely moving portraits of blinded Iraqi detainees awaiting transportation to a prison facility after American and Iraqi forces arrested them on suspicion of insurgent activity, in Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad:

Benjamin Lowy, USA, VII Network for The New York Times Magazine

I would like to end this post on a cheerful note but i can't.

Five years after the closure of the Sangatte refugee center near Calais, some 500 migrants sleep rough in makeshift shelters on the city outskirts. Many have fled conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur, and are hoping to stow away in trains or vehicles heading through the channel tunnel to seek asylum in the UK. Calais overlooks the Strait of Dover, the narrowest point in the English Channel, and is the closest French town to the United Kingdom. In April, the mayor of Calais announced plans to build some basic facilities for migrants on an abandoned football pitch.

Jean Revillard, Switzerland, Rezo.ch.

Although i tend to spend most of my time inside every single branch of Sephora when i'm in New York, i got to see some pretty interesting exhibitions while i was there. Daneyal Mahmood Gallery is hosting until June 14 an arresting installation and series of photographies by Justine Cooper.

Sally, 2008

Cooper has an unquestionable interest for science. The Australian artist is known for having spent one year snooping around the storerooms of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Charles, 2008

According to an interview she gave to Trace blog, the Terminal portraits she is currently exhibiting are inspired by the formal portraitists of the late 19th century and by the scientific work of Bernice Abbott. The stars of Cooper's photographs are medical mannequins (just like Tomer Ganihar's hospital series) and robots. Highly sophisticated, they have been designed to simulate human traumas for training doctors and surgeons.

During her research, the artist found that the personnel charged with the care of the mannequins had humanized these objects into subjects by calling them Sally, Peter, Charles or Mandy. They dress them as if they were about to leave for the Bahamas and even construct a narrative through their care.

Peter, 2008

Also on show, RAPT I is a computer animation created 10 years ago from hundreds of images produced when Cooper voluntarily underwent six hours of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scanning (video). RAPT II is a fascinating installation comprised of 76 of the MRI axial scans, printed on architectural film, suspended and aligned to create a 24 foot long floating body. I found very distressing the idea that i was able to pass my hand between the slices of her body.

Rapt II, Detail, 1998

Rapt is what the artist calls a universal Self Portrait, originally posing the question of if and how new technologies shift the way we can conceive of space, by presenting us with an alternate, elastic interpretation of the body.. "Just as the body is re-codified through medical technology, so its internal spaces and brute physicality are remapped and made accessible in these works. Living flesh is translated into malleable data"

The exhibition is on view at Daneyal Mahmood Gallery until June 14, 2008.